“Atlanta” is one of the best television shows ever created. It is sharp, funny, and inventive, equal parts dramatic, humorous and surreal. It has its own tone, its own distinctive style, and most importantly it has something to say. It has a lot of things to say, and it says these things in an exceptional manner in a variety of ways, through humor, through pathos, through Twilight Zone bottle episodes. It is the sort of work of art that is usually produced only by giving immensely creative people all they require and no oversight. And it ended at the right moment. You could recommend the show to someone fifty years from now and you wouldn’t have to caution that the first season is rough but it gets better, or that they can skip the last season because the quality dropped off. I don’t have a list of classic episodes to recommend. The quality is consistent. 4 seasons of ten episodes each, thirty minutes for each episode. 20 hours of quality television. No filler.
So who is responsible for this modern day feat of storytelling? It is hard to tell sometimes with a TV show as so many people are involved over an extended period of time. However, glancing at IMDB, I believe there are likely three mainly responsible people that clearly work very well together. The first and most obvious is Donald Glover. He is the main star and given his previous fame (Community, Childish Gambino), probably the reason why the TV show was produced in the first place. Donald Glover is also credited as the main writer for eight of the episodes and a director of eight episodes. The second and less obvious is Steven Glover, who I didn’t know about until I was scrolling through IMDB. Stephen is the brother of Donald and the main writer for eleven episodes, eight of those in the first two seasons, including both season finales for Season 1 and 2. Together the Glover brothers wrote 14 of the 21 episodes for the first two seasons. The third is Hiro Murai, who is credited for directing 25 episodes. Neither Steven Glover nor Hiro Murai have any notable credits that predate Atlanta.
Atlanta premiered in 2016 and wrapped in 2022. One of the results of its temporal position is that only Season 1 had DVDs and those DVDs had no special features. So there are no director’s commentary tracks. We will never really know who was responsible for what. Still, I am going to make an uneducated guess and compare the team of Glover Brothers and Hiro Murai to that 20 year period when the Coen Brothers were making movies with cinematographer Roger Deakins. I see a lot of similarities.
Darius, the Most Atlanta
The main throughline of Atlanta’s plot follows a rapper named Paper Boi as he tries to make it in the music business. That by itself is not an original concept and nothing special. Instead, what gives Atlanta its Atlanta-ness is an ancillary character with seemingly no character arc. This is Darius, played by the exceptional actor Lakeith Stanfield, a man who wavers between being enlightened and/or stoned. Unlike all the hustlers, he lets fate decide the parameters of his life and takes the ride on the wheel of fortune with simplicity. It is likely not a coincidence that his manhood was crushed in an unexplained accident during his youth in Nigeria. Like one of the more fascinating characters in movie history, James Spader in Sex, Lies, and Videoptape, it would appear that Darius’ impotence is a mixed blessing that by depriving him of ambition in turn renders him truthful and at peace with the world.
Darius’ enlightenment allows the TV series to take an existential, surreal at points, view of the other characters’ struggles to “make it”. Because he has no agenda, he is unfiltered and expounds strange attitudes, like his idea that there is but one “Florida Man”, a dangerous and mythical creature on level with Bigfoot. Darius does strange things and strange things happen to him. Because he is untied to a regular job, he ventures out into the world to make side money in strange deals. In one of the weirdest encounters in TV history, he spends an afternoon with “Teddy Perkins” (Donald Glover in whiteface), a recluse and rich black entertainer who has bleached his skin white a la Michael Jackson.
What does Darius mean? Sometimes, I think critics get too caught up in explaining what they are seeing on screen. There is plenty in Atlanta that is presented without explanation and I would posit that most of it is not to be explained. What these strange moments do on a storytelling level is to introduce a particular tone and mystery to the series, which in turns renders the Atlanta universe larger than it appears on screen.
A good example of this technique is found in Coen Brothers movies. In the movie “Fargo”, it is called the Mike Yanagita scene. “Fargo”, genre wise, is a police procedural: a crime takes place which the police try to solve. However, the Coen Brothers also wanted to imbue a “trueness” to the story and famously claimed that the movie’s plot was based on actual events (they were not). The Mike Yanagita scene is one of the scenes that makes the movie “Fargo” feel “true”. In it, the police chief assigned to the case, because she happens to be traveling to a city she is not usually in, takes time out of her day to have lunch with a man she knew at university who has randomly called her up to stay in touch. The lunch does not go well and eventually ends with Mike Yanagita in tears.
The thing is, even though the Mike Yanagita scene has very little to do with the plot of “Fargo”, it feels like something that would happen in real life. In your life, you have the things you are focused on during the day, and then every once in a while, something random happens that demands your attention, if only for a moment. These moments are a reminder that real life is not simply a movie about you. Instead, there is a vastness to the world and an enormous, seemingly infinite, amount of story going on right outside your consciousness.
All movies are artifice. The worst ones, glaringly so. The good ones will apply enough competence to convince the viewer that this particular story is believable. The best ones give the viewer a sense that not only is what they are seeing on the screen happening, but that there is a whole world of activity happening offscreen, just like in real life. This is what Atlanta the TV series accomplishes. It is not only about the experiences of its main characters, but also the secret history of The Goofy Movie, a haunted Bulgarian concert venue, Marcus Miles’ invisible car etc. etc. Watching “Atlanta '' is to experience creativity bleeding off the screen. I believe the people involved could have taken any particular strange moment in the series and built an entire episode off of it. There is this strange and mystical place called Atlanta and this series captured but a glimpse of it.
Earn has No Money
Let’s say you were a writer and you wanted to make your job as hard as possible. You could do worse than making your main character broke. There is a reason why there are a disproportionate amount of stories about kings as opposed to peasants. This is because all stories are character development, and all character development requires agency. That is, what differentiates characters from one another is the choices they make. Poverty limits agency. Broke characters literally have less choices because they can’t afford most. Even when characters are supposedly broke in TV shows and movies, they always seem to have at least enough money to accomplish what the plot requires (or a rich uncle).
Earn has no money and the writers aren’t cheating around the situation. No money means no money. That means it is a problem when the affordable restaurant he is taking a date has closed and reopened as a seafood restaurant that sells fruity cocktails. That means he can’t invest $70 today to make a few thousand dollars a few months from now. Earn needs that $70 today. Off the top of my head, I can only think of one other filmmaker that makes movies about people with so little money (Kelly Reichardt) and the reason why is because it is so hard to pull off. For the entirety of Season 1, Earn lives on the edge of “no money” and the writers consistently find a way around this narrative obstacle course without providing any random victories or windfalls. Everything Earn earns, he earns. That is no mean feat for someone starting with nothing.
Earn has no connections. It is said he attended Princeton, but then dropped out. (It isn’t explicitly mentioned, but you can bet he has student debt). His family won’t let him in the house because as his father explains, he can’t afford it. (It isn’t explicitly mentioned, but you can bet his father spent a lot of his savings paying for a college education that wasn’t finished). And finally Earn is black. He doesn’t have any societal support structure in place. He is out here alone in the world.
Earn does appear to be intelligent, diligent, and responsible. But is that enough to be successful? It may be enough to be the manager of Paper Boi during his come up. But once Paper Boi makes it to the next level, circa end of Season 2, Paper Boi seriously considers upgrading his business, including an upgrade at manager, Earn’s position. In one of the more brilliant scenes I have seen in the medium, Earn visits a Jewish passport agency that caters to those in the music business. Earn asks the clerk whether there are any Black lawyers in the industry that are better than the Jewish lawyers. The clerk admits that yes there probably are, but being the best doesn’t matter all that much. The industry is built upon network connections. It’s who you know that matters. Earn sits down and in a brilliant stroke of sound design, the front desk bell rings and the sound evaporates from the room.
“How you doin’ Earn?” Darius asks in a vacuum
Darius goes on to explain that Paper Boi is new to the business and that he knows he is going to make rookie mistakes, that he feels like he will only have so many chances, and that he doesn’t want to compound his mistakes with those of Earn who is also a rookie and bound to make mistakes. That explanation sounds reasonable enough and extraordinarily unfair at the same time.
Systemic racism, by its nature, is an abstract notion. We recognize actual racism: a white man in a bedsheet bombs a black church, white politicians conspire to deprive the black population of the vote. We are told that even without actual racism, systemic racism still exists. But how? Well, think of it not in terms of an outside malevolent force acting with purpose. Think of it more as an inside lack of something. Like the difference between hot and cold. There is not a force in the universe that makes something cold. Everything is cold by default and will remain cold until something comes along and warms it up. Coldness is merely the lack of heat.
The hasidic jews in this area of Atlanta have that something. They all dress the same, have the same haircut, and have network connections within their community built up by a history of incumbency in the music industry. They can turn around a passport in a few hours. The black population of Atlanta lacks that something. Indeed, by this series finale, we have just witnessed an entire season of black people robbing each other. Paper Boi has enough street smarts to seriously contemplate ditching his black cousin and replacing him with a well-connected jew. It wouldn’t make sense to accuse Paper Boi of being racist. It wouldn’t be fair either. He is simply an individual acting in his own self-interest, and that self-interest suggests that he should upgrade his business beyond black people because they are not as well-connected in the system. I’m sure someone can inform me that there isn’t actually a Hasidic Jewish population in Atlanta that can turn around a passport in a few hours. Whatever. If you are going to incarnate an abstract notion, you are going to need a metaphor. This is an exceedingly good one.
Vanessa, Weighing Her Options
The character of Vanessa, played by Zazie Beetz, has her own constraints. She is not broke like Earn. She has a job as a science teacher and her own apartment. But she has a child, a daughter with Earn, and much of the TV series is concerned with her attempts to establish herself as something more than that.
To understand what makes Vanessa’s character special, it is best to contrast her with an army of underdeveloped TV women, long suffering wives of man-children like Ralph Kramden, Tim Taylor, Homer Simpson, etc etc. The sexism apparent in these characters is not in their personalities. Most of the time, they are in better shape, smarter, and wiser than their counterparts. The sexism is in the idea that this particular woman would choose this particular man and then stay with him. Indeed, in The Honeymooners, Ralph Kramden’s yelling at his wife Alice is not the most disturbing thing. The most disturbing thing is that Alice never seems to consider leaving, like she’s trapped there, its not even an option. Or like later TV wives a la Marge Simpson, the wife is given a choice, but, against all reason, she always continues to stay and for the most contrived of reasons, like pity for her well-meaning husband.
(I am aware that a TV series entitled “Kevin Can F*** Himself” exists and it is about a TV wife who becomes self-aware that she is trapped in a sitcom, married to an oafish lout. The only reason I have not seen it is because of its location on AMC+, one of the more obscure streaming services)
Vanessa’s relationship with Earn is on a totally different wavelength. First, they have already broken up and she goes on dates with other men. Second, Vanessa has friendships with women who, in so many passive-aggressive gestures, signal that she should move on from Earn entirely. Indeed, nobody in the TV series is all that interested in keeping the two together. What is the problem with their relationship? Well, a very common situation in real life which is almost never shown in TV or movies. It's really simple actually. Earn is broke and Vanessa, still young, smart, and attractive, could probably find a more established man, not only for herself but also to be the father of her child. And both Earn and Vanessa know it.
This situation is complicated further by the fact that Earn has pride and will not be taking the pity route. In one of the better episodes in Season 2, Vanessa asks Earn what he wants out of their relationship. Earn tries not to answer the question several times. I’m speculating here, but I believe that Earn always wanted Vanessa, but his pride also constrained him from making a commitment he wasn’t sure he could deliver on. In other words, he had love, but wasn’t about to ask Vanessa to accept him only on that. In this way, in the first two seasons, he is noncommittal in order to buy time to get his shit together. It speaks volumes that when Earn finally has money in Season 4, he buys the largest tent possible for a family camping trip and goes all out in trying to win her over. He has arrived and is now ready to be her man in a way that won’t embarrass her in front of all her family and friends when she chooses him. I would posit that taking reality into consideration like this storyline does makes the whole thing more romantic. In fact, as far as I am concerned, this is one of the most romantic love stories I’ve witnessed.
Alfred, Keeping it Real
Which brings us to Alfred “Paper Boi” Miles, played by Brian Tyree Henry. In many ways his arc is the most familiar of all. He is an artist and his arc deals with how his success affects his artistic integrity.
You’ve seen this conflict many times throughout many TV series and movies. What makes Alfred’s particular situation interesting though is how his specific style of music is entirely at odds with any type of normal success. Paper Boi is a rapper that deals drugs on the side. The main launchpad to his popularity is a shootout. A super fan compares him to rap artists from the 90s (that all died violently) and expresses his admiration in how he was willing to just blow away a guy. To this fan, this makes Alfred more real.
Is Alfred real? As an example, artists and especially writers (of which rappers are a subset) generally work in isolation. As this is the case, it is normal for an artist to be introverted. Alfred appears to be introverted on a very basic level, but he is also working in a genre that demands a certain level of provocation. So Alfred goes to a club to be seen when he would rather be not seen. While he is at this club that he doesn’t want to be at, he becomes uncomfortable because there is another musician across the room with a bigger crowd. Alfred, who doesn’t want to be seen, is now frustrated that he is not being seen enough. He can’t win.
Alfred describes rap music as making the best out of a bad situation. But what happens to a rap artist if they make it and, by definition, are no longer in a bad situation. In Season 3, he is asked by a corporation to be part of an apology tour for some ill-advised racist provocation on their part. His natural hustler suggests that he take the corporate money for the minimal amount of effort he would need to put forward. That would be keeping it real. But is it? Or is it more real to refuse to be part of the apology tour because it is not sincere and thus a betrayal of his blackness? Which is the more real course of action, how he would have acted when he was a nobody or how he should act now that he is a somebody?
What happens when a black man wins? The third and fourth seasons of Atlanta mainly concern this brave new world, and for that reason we see Alfred take center stage in place of Earn. “Atlanta” does not have a firm answer to this, which makes sense because one probably doesn’t exist. One of the better Twilight Zone bottle episodes concerns a rich black philanthropist who goes back to his high school and guarantees a college scholarship to all students that can prove they are sufficiently black. In a sign that the writers of “Atlanta” have seriously thought about the obvious consequences of reparations, they then provide all the obvious arguments against it, in particular the reality that an individual could be black in skin color and also “not black enough” to warrant redress. A mixed race teenager who looks white is not included in the scholarship fund, nor is a recent immigrant from Nigeria. If the point is fairness, why should they be included when “more black” people are the “more real” victims who deserve more payback. After one ditches a policy of treating everyone equally, what necessarily results is a categorizing of people that has no natural end to it. After all, we are all individuals and thus different.
Alfred wanders the murky middle for most of the series, both increasingly assured in his success and troubled by what it ultimately means for his artistic integrity, or for society, if it means anything. We are happy for him when he gives himself a break and buys himself a safe farm to get away from it all. Sometimes, even with all the interminable bullshit in the world, and sometimes because of it, it is okay to skip the Black sushi restaurant that society tells you to like for the corporate Popeyes across the street that you know you want.
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